BATON ROUGE - A thief appears to be making a habit of visiting a snowball stand looking for generators. The owner of that stand isn't happy and wants that thief to pay for his crimes.

Around 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 9, 2022, a man is seen on surveillance video walking down Comite Drive in Baker and entering a business parking lot. He walks straight to a pickup truck and proceeds to pull a generator out of the back and starts to wheel it across the lot. He stops to grab a gas can from the truck, fills up the generator, returns the can, then wheels the generator down Comite Drive back the way he came. 

The generator belonged to David Gautreaux and runs power to his snowball stand, Sneaux Season. It cost about $3,200 and weighs about 400 lbs.

"I mean, it took three of us to load it, never did I expect a single individual to just come pull it out," Gautreaux said.

He had to pull a couple of generators from home to make it work for an event that day. Those generators are now locked up, which is a good thing because someone came by Monday around 5:30 p.m. to take a look. They are seen on surveillance video and walking around the truck looking at the generators. An employee confronted him in the parking lot.

"The guy claimed he was interested in buying a snowball despite the 40-degree raining weather we was having," Gautreaux said.

The person gets back into their car, then gets out to check the truck door hooked up to the snowball trailer. The door is unlocked, but the person shuts it, gets back into their car, and drives off.

"My assumption is if there was keys in the ignition it would be dinging and they'd try to take off with it," he said.

The keys weren't in the truck. Gautreaux suspects the incidents are connected and could be the same person.

"I believe so, yes, it's too obvious he was looking at the generator," he said.

The sheriff's office came by after both incidents and dusted for fingerprints on the tailgate and door handle. Gautreaux already has several cameras overlooking the property, but that's not stopping anyone from snooping around.

"He didn't get away with anything yesterday but it's still a peace of your mind and sense of security that's robbed."

He's ordered a new generator to operate the snowball stand and he's buying new cameras to try and prevent thieves from snooping around.

Anyone with information about these incidents should contact the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.